The CRT, BLT, and WCM Critique (Part 3)

Well, we are in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic which has brought mass hysteria that was initiated by our Government, -this is another article for another day- I have to keep my fingers and mind faithful to what I said I was going to write. This is the final article of a three-part series on CRT, BLT and WCM. New readers may be asking, “What series?” I am writing on the slow creep of Critical Race Theory, Black Liberation Theology, and the Woke Church Movement. In my first article, I wrote out six points that prove these three are deadly to the clarity of the Gospel message of Jesus Christ. I then laid out a direction I wanted to go with these six points. Each article would cover two points. If you need to get caught up, here are my first two articles– Article one and Article two.

In this last article, I will include three points because of my inability to cover what I wanted to in my last article. My first point will show the aggressive nature of CRT, BLT, and WCM which gives strength to new heretical groups that are waiting for fuel. Secondly, the article will also describe how these three undermine a good work ethic and put people into victim mentalities. Finally, it will show the core of BLT, according to James Cone, is no better than the Ku Klux Klan in the south during the Jim Crow era since it puts the black race as the elite who can properly interpret the Gospel. If you put either any race or culture as arbiter of God’s truth, this is an error and has disastrous consequences. Believe me, I am really not looking for a fight; I just want to protect the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If you have any questions and need further clarification, please email me at tommy@gospelgm.com.

When I first started sharing my faith, I saw many people attack what I believed about Jesus Christ. This came as no shock because I knew they were lost; however, these three articles that I am writing on CRT, BLT, and WCM are a little different because it is– mostly- an in-house squabble that affects our witness to the lost. The clarity of the Gospel is being attacked; therefore, an aggressive but civil discussion has to take place. Nevertheless, it needs to be done while extending grace to the brethren that we are talking with. It is my hope that these articles will help stimulate healthier and productive dialogue among the brethren because I promise

the rest of America has tossed the train’s brake out of the window and is heading full speed recklessly down the track while lobbing condescending attacks with any opposing view. Just check out Gospel of God Ministries Facebook page and you will see many examples. It should not be so with the body of Christ because what we believe affects a lost and dying world, which is where we turn the page on this article to discuss the heretical group of the Black Hebrew Israelites.

Black Hebrew Israelites

I have run into this religious group around five times over the past few years, and I have received a shotgun blast of proof text coming from its street priests. For the sake of brevity, I will not be able to state everything they believe, and that is not my goal here. It is my goal to share how the BLT of James Cone is going to fan the flames of the BHI.

Here is the cliff notes version of what these chaps believe. They believe they are of the pure race of the Israelites and whites are the Edomites. We are the descendants of Esau. I am not kidding you; this is what they believe. We cannot be saved, but only warned of coming judgment. The pure nation of Israel –which they believe is the black race- is the only group that can be saved.

In a similar way, James Cone states, “Only the oppressed know what is wrong, because they are both the victims of evil and the recipients of God’s liberating activity.”[1] This quote and the thought that only the oppressed can be liberated because they are the victims of evil is the tip of the iceberg with Cone. Sin cannot be addressed from outside of the black community because sin is determined by the community. This is playing right into the hands of BHI.

Let me share my personal experience with the BHI mind state and then move on to my next point. I was sharing the Gospel earlier this year with three black gentlemen, and we were having a four-way dialogue. It came to an abrupt halt when a BHI barged in and grabbed the microphone and stated brashly, “I am here to free you, black brothers, from this white man.” He began to blast me with his proof text passages and destroyed a great witnessing encounter; however, I was still able to share the Gospel. BHI may not know James Cone, but they took a play right out of his book without knowing. They share the principle of making an ethnic group the arbiter of truth, and in this case, it is the black ethnic group. Promoting James Cone and BLT as anything other than dangerous gives rise to the traction that BHI is gaining in America. Denying the Bible’s teaching of the sinfulness of every man takes the target off the real culprit, the indwelling sin that we all deal with.

A dear black brother that I highly respect said it well when, he said, “that we must ask what was the reason a person like James Cone began to rise in popularity with his bad theology?” That question will have to be answered in another article. Let me say this in passing though- as I have stated in other articles- that racism is an issue and unfair treatment of black men in the prison and justice systems in America is real. However, racism is not a one way street of whites against blacks I have seen it from all different types of ethnic groups.

Murder Is In every Ethnic Group

Here is another example of a Minneapolis ex-police officer Derek Chauvin- who was charged rightfully with third-degree murder. Here is a clip from the raw video (1:25) For a law officer who took an oath to "To Protect with Courage, To Serve with Compassion! ". Shows that his heart is desperately sick and devoid of what his oath required. He felt and watched a man starve of oxygen under his knee. He even said, " you think you are a tough guy." What? George Floyd was murdered by an officer who took an oath to protect him.

Also, the justice system needing to be overhauled has nothing to do with the gross misrepresentation of the Gospel shared by James Cone and BHI. The only answer for the Hostility in all ethnic groups is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I must be moving on for now to my next two points before I turn you back over to your latest COVID-19 news.

Destroying the Initiative of Hard Work With Victimhood

If you want to destroy creativity, great work ethic, and someone’s knowing that he or she is adding value to society, then make the person a victim. Look at how irresponsibility is destroying our society! Everyone is a victim, and everyone else is to blame. When we can look at the warts of sin on our face in the mirror and deny them, we are destroying where the solution to the problem really begins. We need not blame another person but take responsibility for our actions. I am not saying there are not victims, but that card is played way too often in this me-first culture.

Here are a few examples of how this is turned around in our current society. The woman is the victim if you don’t allow her to murder her baby. The homosexual is the victim if the cake baker refuses to make the cake. Both the child’s life and the shop owner’s right to choose who he does business with are robbed, and it’s all done in the name of victimhood. Let’s stop and not allow this to go any further. Let’s take responsibility for our sins and not scream victim every time something does not go our way.

Black Liberation Theology- Ethnic Gnosticism-Standpoint Epistemology

I touched on this earlier and will elaborate just a bit. Ethnic Gnosticism runs amuck in BLT. Gnosticism was a movement that was around during biblical times with adherents who claimed to have secret knowledge about God. You had to become a part of the sect in order to have this knowledge transmitted to you. Gnosticism is still here today, just in different forms. Whenever some of a specific ethnic group has a secret insight on the straightforward text of Scripture there is an issue, and we drift from sound biblical theology to satanic theology.

Standpoint epistemology suffers from the same curse that ethnic Gnosticism does. It puts a specific group in the driver’s seat rather than the revelation of the Word of God explained through biblical theology.

The way forward is to get back in our Bibles and to see that putting on ethnically-colored glasses to interpret Scripture is wrong. Let’s do the hard work of good hermeneutics and exegesis to help us bring the text from the then to the now and then apply it in our specific context. Only application should be driven by our context and not our interpretation. Look out for false teachers’ content; it only fuels the fire of heretical groups like the Black Hebrew Israelites. The victimhood mentality that the CRT, BLT, and WCM brings only makes the situation worse rather than bringing a solution to bridge the ethnic group divide. Ethnic Gnosticism and standpoint epistemology make for bad tools to do exegesis. At the end of the day, anything other than biblical theology leads to a fuzzy Gospel. In conclusion, skin color should not be used as an adjective to describe theology in doing so errors are going to be made to isolate and deviate people from the pure Gospel that has been given once and for all to the saints. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming of COVID-19 on your social media feeds and news broadcasts.

Go proclaim the Gospel to see a life transformed